


There are ten letters in I love you and it just so happens all of them are Harry Styles

by whywouldieverpushlouisoffthebed



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, M/M, and lots of great conversations, cuteness, harry has a crush on louis, louis isnt out yet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-08
Updated: 2013-06-08
Packaged: 2017-12-14 07:33:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/834315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whywouldieverpushlouisoffthebed/pseuds/whywouldieverpushlouisoffthebed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry writes Louis letters and most of the time they end up in the trash. Until the one that doesn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There are ten letters in I love you and it just so happens all of them are Harry Styles

It was the middle of March and Louis' life was a constant cycle of school and football and babysitting his little sisters, which didn’t leave him much time for the curly haired boy whose name he cant even remember.

 And by this point he should not only be able to remember the boy's name but forge his fucking signature he's seen it so many times.

 See it all really started about two months prior, right after everyone returned from the holiday break, and it began just like any other day.

 “Louis you have to come. Even Liam is coming and he never comes.”

 Niall whined as the two boys were walking down the hallway in between classes. He had been trying to convince Louis to come Zayn's annual _New Years is over but we need an excuse to drink_ party for the last five minutes, which in Louis' opinion was four minutes too long.

 “Liam is only going so he can stalk Zayn. And you're going for the girls. What's in it for me?”

 He already knew he'd end up going, but he wasn’t one to go down without a fight.

 “I heard Eleanor is going to be there.”

 Niall said, waggling his eyebrows.

 And fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

 Now he really had to go or risk blowing his cover, which just wasn’t an option at this point.

 Because when Liam decided to come out, at the end of his power point presentation about basic human rights in history class the day before break, and declared his crush on their school's most popular student that night over pizza, it put a major dent in Louis' plan. He couldn’t come out now and steal his friend's glory, so instead he made up a story about having a crush on the girl that always smiled at him at lunch, and called it good. He had no idea that his friends would take it that seriously, bringing her up any chance they got.  He thought they knew him better than that. The way he pranced around and got caught staring at boys and shit, did they not have eyes? Everything about him practically screamed _I'm gay,_ yet they remained oblivious.

 “Is she now?”

 He asked in the most convincing _fake_ hopeful voice he could muster.

 “That's what a little birdie told me. So you’re in then?”

 And hadn’t he always been in? Even if he didn’t want to be.

 “Sure—whatever. But I swear to god Niall, if I have to watch you strip down and dance on the table while singing Teenage Dream again I'm going to murder you. And it will be slow and agonizing.”

 Niall didn’t seem to take the threat seriously, instead choosing to pat Louis on the head like a puppy and mutter what sounded like _good boy_ before running off into the stream of students.

 Louis realized shortly after that that he had somehow ended up at his locker, probably his sub conscious reminding him that he needed his maths book, and put in the code to open it. When a folded piece of paper fell out, landing by  his foot, he picked it up thinking it was some misplaced piece of homework. After closer inspection it turned out to be as far from homework as a piece of paper could possibly get.

The first thing he noticed were the messy words scrawled out across the front reading: _To the boy with the ocean eyes._ If this was some kind of joke it really wasn’t funny and as he slowly unfolded the paper he was mentally planning his payback.

 Turned out it wasn’t a joke.

  _You are always around,_

_yet never by my side._

  _Hi Louis,_

  _Is it creepy that I know your name even though we've never met? Oh well I guess I might as well be honest with you, I've had a huge fourteen year old girl crush on you for awhile now and it isn’t showing any signs of stopping. I guess this is just my way to get it out of my system? Or I could always talk to you, but I don’t really know if you’d be okay with that, you know? As far as I know you’re only into girls, which unfortunately for me poses quite a problem seeing as I'm not a girl. Anyways feel free to forget this ever happened._

  _-H_

 He found the nearest trash can, crumpled the letter into a makeshift basketball and scored.

 *

 The party turned out to be everything he had thought it would be.

 “Liam seriously just go talk to the kid before I do it for you.”

 Currently Louis was on his fifth beer, squished between Liam and some girl that was so drunk she couldn’t sit up straight on the couch. Zayn was across the room swaying to the music that was too loud, arm around a girl's waist and eyes locked on hers, completely oblivious to the boy that was having a mental breakdown on his behalf.

 “It's not that simple, you know that.”

 Liam drawled out, laying his head on Louis' shoulder and closing his eyes.

 “I know of no such thing! You Liam Payne are much prettier than that girl and I command you to go get your man.”

 Louis followed his speech with a finger stuck out pointing directly across the room, Liam immediately noticing and pulling the boy's arm back down.

 “Lou don’t point! What if he would’ve saw you?”

 The turn of events must've re energized the boy, who now sat upright staring at Louis with wide eyes.

 “That was the point actually my dear friend. I'm going to get another beer.”

 With the help of Liam, Louis managed to get on two feet and make his way towards where Zayn was dancing. It wasn’t until he was out of reach that Liam noticed that the boy's beer can stuffed between the cushions hadn’t even been touched yet.

 Louis was quite pleased with his trick, but it wasn’t all that hard to fool Liam, with him  sharing a lot of qualities of those dogs that chase the ball when you pretend to throw it and all.

 “Zayn my mate! Mind if I have a moment of your time?”

 The boy responded with a curious look that Louis perceived as a yes.

 “You know Liam right? Liam Payne, sensible, studious, quite boring in my opinion but very very great in bed.”

 He probably shouldn’t have said that last part, but hey, he was drunk.

 “Yeah—yeah. I know him. Why?”

 Now Zayn appeared mildly nervous, looking around like he was searching for someone to save him, but Louis wasn’t here to fucking read his every move like a book. He was here to help his best mate get laid.

 “Well he's over there.” Louis turned around and pointed at the couch. “And I think he wants your dick. Or wait—shit. No he wants your heart. You know what, how about you just go talk to him?”

 Liam was giving him the death stare and if he could've heard what he was saying he probably would’ve shot Louis down with his mind powers right then and there.

 “Um maybe another time. I've really got to—hey Perrie you said you needed help in the kitchen right—

sorry mate.”

 And he was gone just like that.

 Luckily Niall picked the perfect moment to make his entrance, dressed in a police officer uniform, Miley Cyrus' Party in the USA vibrating off the walls.

 “Officer Horny is here to partay!”

 He bellowed out, sets of eyes all over the room landing on him as he tried to rip his shirt off. Key word, tried. He opted for just taking his pants off instead and spinning them in circles above his head as he galloped over to where Liam was sitting. Louis got there just about the same time.

 “I think you mispronounced your last name mate.”

 Liam giggled and jesus that boy was oh so oblivious.

 “So officer horny I believe I promised you a murder.”

 Louis said, reaching out and pinching the boy's bare thigh.

 “Oww! Shit Lou—wait you said I couldn’t strip to Teenage Dream. You said nothing about Hannah Montana.”

 He was trying to pull his shirt off over his head now but it was so tight that he could barely get it past his shoulders.

 “No stripping. Period.”

 Louis tapped Niall on the end of his nose that was just poking out over his crumpled shirt and the boy frowned, pulling it back down.

 “What the hell am I supposed to do then?”

 He asked in that voice that meant he knew he'd been defeated.

 “I'm sure you’ll figure something out.”

 Louis sighed, retrieving his beer from the couch and popping the tab. Almost instantly something, or someone, hit him from behind. He stumbled a few feet, before managing to regain his composure and make sure he hadn’t gotten any beer on himself. Only after finding himself dry did he turn around to come face to face with a boy that was so stunning he almost considered coming out right then.

 “Sorry—Louis right?”

 Mr. I-have-long-legs-like-a-deer-which-make -me-run-into-people breathed out like he had just ran a marathon. His voice was deep and slow, reminding Louis of an autumn storm. Autumn storms just so happened to be Louis' favorite storms by the way.

 “Yeah. You should probably be a little more careful deer boy.”

 Louis teased, taking another swig of his beer and pretending not to notice the way the boy's eyes trailed  down his throat.

 “Name's Harry. And sorry, unfortunately I don’t really have an excuse, just clumsy.”

 Harry stood there, eyes locked on Louis' and fuck Liam goddamn Payne and his bad coming out of the closet timing. If it weren’t for him Louis might've had a chance, might've even had his first kiss (because anything before the age of seven or with a girl doesn’t count), might've got to run his hands through this boy's outrageous head of curly brown hair.

 But no, he wont get to do any of those things. At least not for awhile that is.

 “S'okay.”

 Louis smiled warmly, mainly because his face was on fire.

 “Anyways it was nice officially meeting you, maybe I'll see you around?”

 Harry shook his head, pushing his hair to one side and holy fucking shit he had dimples. Louis was going to make sure Liam paid for this.

 “Maybe.”

 Even though Louis wanted to scream hopefully. Well maybe not scream, he doesn’t want to look like he's crazy after all.

 Harry disappeared into the crowd after that and Louis got to avoid his friends questioning looks for the rest of the night.

 *

 Monday morning there was another letter in his locker, this time the front reading: _To the boy that's awfully cute when he's drunk._

 Louis was going to fling himself off a cliff because that meant whoever was doing this was at the party, and he hadn’t really be in his right mind at the party.

  _Me again! I'm sure you’re very excited. Or you wish you knew who I was so you could beat the shit out of me. One or the other haha. I wasn’t going to write again (seriously I wasn’t, I swear) but then I got the feeling that you might not be as into girls as I'd previously thought so I figured I'd give this another shot. I don’t even really know what I'm trying to accomplish._

  _Bye._

  _-H_

 He gave H props for his inkling about not being into girls but crumpled the paper and dropped in into the trash can on his way to class anyway. Now wasn’t really the best time for secret admirers. He had his own secrets to keep.

 *

 Two weeks went by without another letter and Louis wouldn’t admit it but he started to worry if he'd done something wrong. Which was silly because it was just two letters from some random person that probably forgot about him before they even really remembered him.

 Then he just passing by his locker after lunch, not really even needing anything out of it, but stopping anyway. He was absolutely positively not hoping there would be a letter inside. Nope.

 When he pulled open the door and that paper fell out onto the floor, his heart felt like it spun in a complete circle.

  _To the boy that I haven’t forgotten about_

 Okay so that was a scary coincidence.

  _Sorry it's been so long. I promise I was thinking about you though. Well if you don’t think that's weird (if you do just pretend you didn’t read that). I've been thinking about maybe telling you who I am, but I'm not sure yet. I'll decide by the end of this letter. So I've been wondering, do you like girls? I mean I guess you cant really answer me unless you want to like hang up a sign that says yes or no on that stairwell by the gym. But you probably think that's crazy, hanging up random signs to answer your stalker's questions. (I’m really not stalking you. I promise. Unless you consider the occasional glance stalking in which case I stalk you A LOT)_

 It was signed sloppily, a jumble of letters that appeared to spell Harry.

 Too bad he didn’t know any Harry's, that would make things too easy.

 He ended up folding the letter back up and throwing it away just like the rest. If he snuck to the stairwell by the gym and hung up a sign that said NO, underlined and written in bright red ink, no one had to know.

 *

 The letters came steadily after that, usually once a week, but sometimes more if he was lucky. He didn’t keep any of them, but he did start re-reading them once or twice (okay sometimes three times) before folding them up and setting them in the trash can like they almost didn’t deserve to be there.

 Little pieces stayed hidden away in his head. Like the time the boy called him and I quote “the most beautiful thing I've ever seen” or when he said he wished he would notice him just once so he would feel like it all wasn’t for nothing.

 He'd even give him hints about what he looked like, green eyes, curly hair, tall, but by that point football season was starting and Louis just didn’t have time. The letters were the last thing on his mind, with the stress of everything going on around him, his mum having to take a second job which meant he had to babysit his four sisters almost every night of the week after practice.

 He ended up telling the girls first.

 They were all squeezed on the couch watching what seemed like the millionth episode of icarly when Lottie brought it up like nothing was out of the ordinary.

 “Lou are you gay?”

 She hadn’t even taken her eyes off the tv screen but if she had she would’ve seen Louis' jaw drop. Was it really that obvious? Oh yeah, of course it was.

 “Well—um I guess?”

 What was he supposed to do, lie to his sister?

 “I knew it! Fizzy I believe you owe me some money.”

 Lottie screamed and Fizzy pouted.

 “You were betting on my sexual orientation? What kind of sisters are you?”

 And he couldn’t help but laugh because he'd taught them well after all

 “Excellent ones.”

 Lottie stated.

 “Top of the line.”

 Fizzy added.

 “What's gay?”

 Daisy asked Phoebe.

 Oh boy was he in the deep end now.

 *

 After that it kind of just slipped out quite a bit. Of course his sisters told his parents, who said it was about time he admitted it and made jokes over dinner for a week.

 His boys were next and they just always had to make things difficult.

 “You are what?”

 Niall asked, a spaghetti noodle hanging out of his half open mouth.

 “Gay.”

 Louis didn’t know how to make it any clearer without fucking one of them right there in the cafeteria.

 “As in?”

 He prompted, slurping the noodle into his mouth and leaving sauce staining the corner of his lips.

 “As in I like dick, penis, cock. Um—butt holes, boys—seriously do you want me to keep going?”

 Niall choked and Liam laughed, patting the boy on the back.

 “I would’ve never guessed. Like good job mate, with all the Eleanor stuff and pretending to like girls, just good job.”

 Louis couldn’t believe that Niall was really that clueless, he'd thought he'd done such a shitty acting job, but apparently not.

 “Jesus Niall sometimes you are an idiot. Lou if it makes you feel any better I always knew.”

 Liam was shaking his head like he couldn’t believe his choice of friends sometimes. He wouldn’t change a thing though.

 “Well of course you did! You're gay too!”

 Niall shouted a little too loudly which earned a few curious looks from the tables around them.

 One person specifically, deer boy, caught his eye and smiled like he was working at one of those stores where you always have to act like the happiest fucking person on the planet.

 Louis couldn’t stop staring the rest of the lunch period and when he saw the same boy standing against his locker his heart sped up to a level that couldn’t have been healthy. He texted Niall and told him to be ready to call 911 in case he had a heart attack, the boy just sent back a question mark, what a help he was.

 The closer he got the more he noticed, those fucking emerald green eyes staring into what felt like his soul, that unruly curly hair, that fact that this boy was tall. And oh shit he really couldn’t believe it had taken him this long.

 “So I kind of overheard by complete accident a major announcement of yours at lunch.”

 Harry said, fiddling with something in his pocket, eyes jumping from Louis' face to the floor and back again.

 “Harry.”

 It all kind of hit him at once, the name, the party, the accidental bumping into him, the letters, and he got all crinkly eyes and giddy. Because wasn’t this boy kind of the whole reason he ended up coming out? I mean it was a slow process, but every step of the way he was pushed along by this unknown letter writing entity that told him lovely things and gave him a reason to be himself. Without him he might've kept putting it off, saying Liam needed more time, making excuses.

 “That is my name. I've got a letter for you.”

 The boy said, pulling a very wrinkled piece of paper from his pocket. It was clear he was nervous about this one, none of the others had looked that beat up.

 Louis took it gently, unfolding it like it could burst into flames and disappear at any moment.

  _I know you just came out like 20 minutes ago but would you maybe like to go on a date with me?_

 By this point all of the students had made it to their classes, leaving the hallway deserted, well except for two very awestruck boys.

 Louis decided to answer with his lips, crowding into Harry's space and wrapping his arms around the boy's waist before gently leaning in. Harry seemed to get the idea, leaning down just slightly and pressing his lips to Louis' while his hands found their way to the sides of the boy's face. It was a first kiss in every aspect, holding so much hope and promise for the future, just soft lips on soft lips.

 When they pulled apart a few seconds later, Harry's eyes lit up like stars in the country sky as Louis smoothed out the letter that had been clutched in his hand. He made sure to fold it up just right before carefully sliding it into his pocket and wrapping Harry in a tight hug.

 “I'm keeping this one forever.”

 He whispered against the shell of the boy's ear. And to think it all started with a piece of paper, because he was pretty sure he wanted to hold onto that paper and this boy for the rest of his life. Harry just seemed like the type of boy you cant help but fall in love with, and boy when Louis falls he falls quick.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> As always I'd love to know what you guys think!! :)


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